Abstract

From the state of social thought on nature, environment, agrarian activity and landscape, my research tries to define the role of contemporary art in the mediation of nature within the contemporary Europe context. As an analytical and critical framework, this presentation reviews some perspectives for understanding the natural-life-organic processes connected to traditional science and art praxis in recent decades. My fieldwork is based on three different geographical and social case studies in which, from an ecological, aesthetic and gender perspectives, the attitude and perception of nature are explored and compared. These case studies are communities involved in artistic or transformative initiatives in which environmental questions are confronted. The research methodology is based on hybrid instruments between qualitative social research and artistic practices. It starts with a pilot case study in a small locality in the countryside of Spain, is followed by a case of a marginal urban town in the metropolitan area of Asturias, and finishes with a virtual contemporary art community that produces knowledge about nature from the perspective of art, science and technology.

Bio

Lorena Lozano - Artist and biologist, her research connects art and science knowledge and methodologies, focusing on the intersection between ecology and new communication technologies. Graduated in Biology (University of Oviedo, 1998) and Environmental Art (Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, 2007). Currently a doctoral candidate in the Departments of Sociology and Art History, at the University of Oviedo, Spain. One of the foundational members and coordinator of ecoLAB, an experimental laboratory on Art, Ecology and Open electronics (Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón 2011-2012). With Rubén Suárez and Javier Palacios, co-founded in 2012 the platform econodos_ecology & communication. Developing the project Herbarium at Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia, León, Spanish countryside, since 2013. For more information, see: www.lorenalozano.net/, www.econodos.net/, and www.herbarium.cc/.

Activity within Research group Cities, Cultures, and Architecture (CCArq) & the research project Culturizing Sustainable Cities